Back home

I have been home now for a few days and all is going well. I still seem to be stable with a lot more get up and go than I have had over the last year. I still have a bit of wind, but I am hoping that this will sort itself out if I continue with the diet as I have been.

On Saturday it was my Grandparent's 55th anniversary celebration. It was also my first anniversary of becoming ill. I have read many posts about other CFS sufferers' anniversarys and they all have a familiar pattern. Before such and such a day I was really health, outgoing person and then bang, without warning, my life was lost. My post would have followed similar lines, but recently I have been thinking this is not quite true. Thinking back there were a number of warning signs that I missed. About a week before I had my first crash, my girlfriend and I enjoyed a well earned holiday weekend in Arran. Looking at the photos from this break, shows me looking terrible - baggy eyes just looking really tired. I had been pushing myself really hard that month, both with work and physically competing in a charity fitness event called "move for Malawi". During the month of March I went to the gym everyday and really pushed it. Thinking back to a walk in Arran I decided not to climb the extra bit of a hill because I was too tired - not the behaviour of the fit 25 year old as I would have described myself back then. Also, the other day I spoke to a lecturer in my department who also competed in the move for Malawi. He said he remembered seeing me in the gym on the 30th of March (the day before the crash) and thinking that I looked awful.

So the warning signs were there, I just didn't read them. This is the moral of the story - listen to your body and if you are pushing too hard, stop before you push too much.